I agree with this. I think most pollsters are in a bubble. There are many DIFFERENT bubbles, but, I think they are all in a bubble.
Illinois #9 in 1/26 AP Poll
- Status
interesting....I'd say that so far, Uconn has earned their ranking..they look good, imo. Nebraska at 5 is proabably a tad high, but they are 20-0...until proven otherwise, they deserve that ranking, imo.
Texas Tech is a weird one why the computers don't like them.
Miami of Ohio has done all they can do. KP SoS is keeping them at 86. NC at 15 in the AP? It's all about Name Recognition.
The great thing about locals is yeah, sure, they all have their biases, but by and large the biases of the locals all cancel each other out and other than over-rating their local team or teams, they do a pretty honest and accurate assessment of the rest of the field. The national folks on the other hand have biases that often correspond with, and amplify, each other.
UConn, Duke, Gonzaga (especially the third) get the benefit of playing in a weak conference.
That's kind of the give-and-take of it all. Yes, there's a potential advantage there, but also a potential drawback, sometimes a big one. You have more opportunities to rack up bad losses and tank your seed, and fewer opportunities to get a good win to redeem it. Take last year's Gonzaga team - despite being #8 team in KenPom, despite ending the season strong and winning the conference tourney, they end up as an 8-seed. They absolutely dominated Georgia in the 8-9 game, then faced Houston in the second round, and lost. Because it was Houston.
No way Gonzaga last year ends up an 8-seed if they compete in the Big Ten. We were #17 in KP, went 12-8 in the conference, and had a 6-seed.
sacraig
- The desert
As long as there are many different bubbles, then they should average out to something reasonable, which is already better than whatever Gary Parrish publishes on a given day.
ptgrd23
- orange county CA
I like that Lunardi has already said he will have Illinois as #2 seed tomorrow.
Keep winning - the polls and seeding will catch up. We are 6-3 in quad 1 wins. Opportunities for adding 7 more plus B10 tournament. If we go 5-2 we will be 11-5 in quad 1. Definitely good enough for #2 seed and possibly #1 seed. I think it depends on what happens vs Nebraska, MSU and Michigan.
Washington
@Nebraska
@ MSU
Wisconsin
@SC
@UCLA
Michigan
The 2021 #1 seeded Illini were 12-5 in Quad 1
Keep winning - the polls and seeding will catch up. We are 6-3 in quad 1 wins. Opportunities for adding 7 more plus B10 tournament. If we go 5-2 we will be 11-5 in quad 1. Definitely good enough for #2 seed and possibly #1 seed. I think it depends on what happens vs Nebraska, MSU and Michigan.
Washington
@Nebraska
@ MSU
Wisconsin
@SC
@UCLA
Michigan
The 2021 #1 seeded Illini were 12-5 in Quad 1
teams and jumps 3 spots. We beat #4 Purdue AT Purdue and only jump 2 spots. Honestly, screw the AP.
Texas Tech isn't winning as big as the teams around them and they also have 4 losses, so their efficiency metrics simply don't stack up despite the difficult strength of schedule. And based on how NET works where there are no limiters based on margin of victory in games, blowing teams out to pump your efficiency metrics is the name of the game.
It used to be you wanted to avoid Quad 4 Matchups because even if you won big, they'd tank your SOS and RPI, and most efficiency sites limited efficiency based on score effects. So beating a bad team by 30 was worth only marginally more than beating that team by 60. Nowadays though with NET, the only opponents to you should be facing are Top 25 teams and the worst of the worst Quad 4 teams. Losses to top 25s are damped heavily if you lose because of how high that opponent's efficiency is, while wins are glorified. And Quad 4 teams are there to beat up on as much as possible to bankroll those high efficiency metrics through blowouts.
I and my family members have discussed this for years. There are always good teams thay might deserve their rankings, but do not play the same schedule as teams in tough conferences. Even when they still perform well in the tournament I think it is a product of not getting worn down in game after game in conference games.
I don't know if this kosher to post (I really don't know). It includesa discussion of this year's freshmen class and good amount of deatil on Wagler. It explains what he did in those last 4 minutes. Fun and educational read. Also, their poll is about the most realistic
www.nytimes.com
Men’s college basketball Top 25: A historically great freshman class is only getting better
From Arizona to BYU to Illinois and many more, the Top 25 is full of teams led by star freshmen.
www.nytimes.com
Michigan has played 1 team worse than 160th on KenPom.
The metrics don't care who you play. That's the point of them. Just beat the teams you play by more than they expect you to. It doesn't matter if they're 330th or 80th.
You can argue it's easier to overperform against Q4 teams but that's a somewhat separate discussion.
Well look, the question is do you want voters ranking teams based on advanced metrics, based on wins/losses, or some combo?
Because yeah, according to KP, Gonzaga is a bit overrated. KP has them at #9, Torvik at #15. So yeah, a bit overrated in the AP. They're also 21-1 and everyone behind them has at least 2 losses (until you get to SLU at #21). So ok, you say it should be based on analytics and they should be lower. Fine.
But then you have a problem with your other example. Florida's record is bad. But analytics love them. KP has them at #11 and Torvik at #12. So the same logic that says Gonzaga is overrated, says Florida is underrated. And vice, versa.
AP voters, in the aggregate, appear to come out in the middle when it comes to teams like this, where the analytics and record don't quite match up. Which is probably good. I don't think Gonzaga should be knocked down 10 spots. Sure analytics don't love them as much, but they're 21-1, 3-1 Q1 record, 8-1 Q1 + Q2. Sure they could move down a spot or two but it's not egregious. I also don't think Florida should be bumped from the rankings entirely, or ranked higher. They're clearly inconsistent, but KP and Torvik show there's a good team in there and all their losses are Q1. At the same time, 6 losses is a lot and AP voters should not rank them as high as KP and Torvik have them.
I've always been on the opposite end of the spectrum for midmajors and it's not too dissimilar from football. I feel that so long as a midmajor schedules and plays some tough non-con games and proves themselves as competitive and capable of winning those games, I feel their overall record and performance in those games should hold higher weight than their overall resume might show. My reasoning for this is yes, playing a power conference schedule is inherently tougher, but I also think it's overblown how "tough" it is to beat bottom half of major conference teams. Many of the teams in the bottom half of the B10 or SEC are not any better than decent midmajors and do fairly regularly lose to them OOC. For example, Minnesota lost to San Francisco this year, Washington lost to Seattle, etc. So I see very little difference between midmajors playing tough OOC games and their easier conference schedule than major teams playing a weak OOC schedule and their tougher conference schedule.
Long and the short of it, many years ago I grew tired of big boy SEC football teams crying and whining about how tough their conference is as reasons to get preferential treatment only to see them lose in bowl games to those midmajor teams with good records they were trashing. And while I am a stats person and love metrics, I still think if you're as good a team as you say you are you should win those "tough" games against bottom half teams in your conference.
Illini in Italy
- Illini HQ, Florida Panhandle
I guess where I would disagree a little is in the fact that while Gonzaga consistently plays a tough OOC schedule (as do most of the top P4 teams), when the conference schedule kicks in is where the rubber meets the road. Any B1G/B12/SEC team is playing a schedule where the entire conference rated higher than the conference schedule that Gonzaga faces. The WCC has 12 members, 9 of which rated at 100+ in Kenpom with 2 over 200. The B1G has 3 ranked over 100 with Rutgers the worst at 160, the B12 has one rated over 100, the SEC has none, and the ACC has 4 with BC at 144. There is a significant disparity between Gonzaga's conference schedule and the P4 conference schedules. While one can explain it away as "midmajor", the fact is they don't play as tough a year long schedule as the P4 teams, but have been rewarded by the committee through the years with high seeds because of their gaudy results against a weak sister conference schedule. Mark Few has been brilliant managing this over the years.
lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
Nebraska lost 2x
Michigan St lost
That takes us from 9 to 7. We were within 30 votes of both Iowa St and Gonzaga. Iowa St won both of their games in blowouts, but Gonzaga hasn’t looked great lately.
I say we hop Gonzaga.
#6.
Michigan St lost
That takes us from 9 to 7. We were within 30 votes of both Iowa St and Gonzaga. Iowa St won both of their games in blowouts, but Gonzaga hasn’t looked great lately.
I say we hop Gonzaga.
#6.
GrayGhost77
- Centennial, CO
Yep. #6 seems about right.
That's the right answer, but Gonzaga, because of the name, won't get jumped unless they lose. I think it's #7. Iowa State absolutely dismantled two conference appointments, albeit not very strong ones. Hard to drop them after a dominant week.
My question is how far does Nebraska fall? My question about them is that all year, things have gone perfectly. They lost to Michigan, then got absolutely punched in the mouth today. Do they fade or put it back together. Will be interesting to see what the media thinks of them after back to back L's
lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
I see a similar drop to Purdue who lost two last week. I’ll say 7 spots. #12.
And yeah, the AP poll tends to penalize losses more than it rewards wins, so I wouldn’t be surprised with #7 either.
- Status